Milestone Community Hype vs Substance

Author: Brian Karas, Published on Mar 03, 2016

Milestone is no longer the Open Platform Company.

The Canon subsidiary is now the Open Platform Community. Indeed, Milestone's CEO is promising "non-linear disruption", and that they must 'change the rules'.

But what does this really mean and how will this change the industry?

We spoke with Milestone, asking them these questions and examine their responses and our analysis inside.

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Comments (16)

John Honovich

IPVM | 03/03/16 05:27pm

I hope Milestone executee on the app / marketplace approach, though I am skeptical about execution.

Making video surveillance more 'software centric' is a great way to fight off commoditization. If Milestone could really make VMS 'apps' easy and powerful, it could make things better for end users and systems more powerful.

But Milestone's execution is suspect. A lot of this seems to be because they are so wrapped up into talking about 'thinking bigger' and 'non linear disruption' that execution is secondary. This is a company whose main focus for the past few years has been Husky - NVR boxes 10 years too late...

The low end of the market is probably lost, but Milestone needs to find the right engineering execution to stop the real challenges of high-end rivals like Avigilon's tight end-to-end solution and Genetec's increasingly powerful hybrid enterprise cloud.

Michael Goodwin

In reply to John Honovich | 03/04/16 03:41am
I think the low end of the community quite likes the Milestone GO... I talk and help low end people with it regularly... about the only thing that I'm concerned about making it easy to integrate is that it might make it easier for people to hack... my take on milestone being Open is that you are not forced into their cam's or their hardware etc... I'm not seeing that change so...

Undisclosed #1

03/03/16 05:37pm

What is non-linear disruption supposed to mean anyway? As opposed to what?

btw, Cortez didn't burn his ships, he sunk them, though the point remains. :)

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed #1 | 03/03/16 05:47pm

"What is non-linear disruption supposed to mean anyway? As opposed to what?"

I google'd and Milestone'd it:

Undisclosed #1

In reply to John Honovich | 03/03/16 10:53pm

so wrapped up into talking about 'thinking bigger' and 'non linear disruption' that execution is secondary. This is a company whose main focus for the past few years has been Husky - NVR boxes 10 years too late...

Speaking of getting bigger, is Milestone big enough that Canon reports them as a business unit? I think that as long as they are growing and profitable there is no pressing need to yank the leash.

Thumbnail brk1

Brian Karas

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed #1 | 03/03/16 05:53pm

btw, Cortez didn't burn his ships, he sunk them

LOL, I actually knew that and originally had that worded as something like "burning and scuttling", but didn't want to get too waded down in a minor point :)

Thumbnail zayon 1673

Ari Erenthal

Chesapeake & Midlantic | In reply to Brian Karas | 03/03/16 06:56pm

I think you confused Cortes with Hannibal Barca, who burned his bridges behind him.

Undisclosed #1

In reply to Brian Karas | 03/03/16 10:12pm

Blame it on my Dad, he's a history nut. Anyway, keep up the references, I'd hate to stifle the Great Conversation.

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed #1 | 03/04/16 01:40am

IPVM's quite the 'community'.... :)

Rodney Thayer

03/04/16 05:02pm

So Milestone's gonna have an app store and the CEO is laying down a modern buzzword trail before they try to buy a booth at SXSW. And you seasoned Milestone veterans don't actually see anything different other than the glow around the marketing blurbs. (And I assume Milestone has not as of my post woken up and offered IPVM any feedback...)

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Rodney Thayer | 03/04/16 05:06pm

"I assume Milestone has not as of my post woken up and offered IPVM any feedback..."

We talked to them before publishing, explaining our concerns and them sharing their perspective to us. Suffice to say, we have diverging opinions on the substance of the community offering.

"don't actually see anything different other than the glow around the marketing blurbs."

I will say that was some terrific marketing glow, they do know how to put on a show.

Michael Goodwin

In reply to John Honovich | 03/05/16 04:15am

they do know how to put on a show.

they have to do something with the bucket loads of money they are making, can't give it ALL to the CEO :)

Undisclosed Manufacturer #2

03/13/16 04:42pm

I must say I was wrong about Milestone's direction since Canon purchased both them and Axis. I assumed that Canon would want to go after the Avigilon strategy and be able to offer an end to end solution in an IP CCTV project. Being at the MIPS conference and seeing the non stop selling of the open platform community and how much money they are investing in this marketing I would say that this is not hype but real substance.

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed Manufacturer #2 | 03/13/16 06:45pm

"Being at the MIPS conference and seeing the non stop selling of the open platform community and how much money they are investing in this marketing I would say that this is not hype but real substance."

So I agree that they are showing that the open platform is not hype. The question is whether 'community' is more than hype. In other words, is Milestone really becoming any different than it was a few years ago or is this just a reaffirmation of the same basic approach pre-acquisition?

Undisclosed #1

03/13/16 06:37pm

...seeing...how much money they are investing in this marketing I would say that this is not hype but real substance.

Money + Marketing = Hype

Undisclosed Manufacturer #3

03/13/16 07:21pm

How can the largest VMS provider waste their precious influence on something so passé. Open is the new normal, welcome to 2016 Milestone...

Nest... https://developer.nest.com/

Zwave... http://openzwave.com/dev/

Chrome... https://developer.chrome.com/devtools

There are a million other opportunities to be innovative in the Video Surveillance industry! Where is a scream pillow when you need one?

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